


Stradivarius

by Berty



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 221B Baker Street, Blankets, Cold Weather, Developing Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Domestic Life at 221B Baker Street, Fireplaces, First Kiss, First Time, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Hospitals, Inexperienced Sherlock Holmes, Kisses by firelight, London, Love Confessions, M/M, Mary Is Already Out Of The Picture, Minor Mary Morstan/John Watson, Mutual Pining, Mycroft's Meddling, PTSD John, Post-Reichenbach, Protective Big Brother Mycroft, Sherlock Plays the Violin, Sherlock's Violin, Snow, Snow and Ice, Teaching, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-02 00:21:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16294748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Berty/pseuds/Berty
Summary: Life goes back to what passes for normal at 221B Baker Street.Sherlock's back and his scars have faded.John's still a confirmed bachelor and his nightmares have mostly ceased.So why are there awkward pauses and uncertain glances? Why are they both on their best behaviour?It's been a long, cold winter in London and there's more to come before spring arrives.





	1. Moon River and Me

**Author's Note:**

> This is being posted as it is edited - it's all written , but computer woes mean I don't get as much time to write as I'm used to - hence this being posted in chapters. It's around 20K words in all and I will post in chunks that make sense over the next couple of weeks. 
> 
> With thanks to the lovely Lina for help with the title. 
> 
> For Pepe and Salads and Geoff and Lina and 88thParallel who, all unwitting, keep me sane.

It’s edging towards spring, but you wouldn’t know it. The UK is locked in a prolonged cold spell and it still gets dark too early in the evenings. After all the gaudy festive lights have been taken down, London feels grey, dirty and seedier than ever. Trapped between Christmas and the clocks going forward again, it’s that strange time of year when the British collectively suffer from the post-festive, post-credit card bill slump. Snow loses its mystical December allure and becomes something to endure or dread. New Year’s resolutions have all been broken, the telly is awash with adverts for package holidays to sunnier climes and everyone waits for the day when they can break out of their thick winter clothing, blinking like pale, over-excited butterflies from damp wool chrysalises.

It’s not even a long walk from the next closest tube station to Baker Street (despite all the engineering works…thank you so much, Transport for London) but John’s feet are already like blocks of ice, and his nose and ears are numb. He still smiles to himself though, when he hears the sound of Sherlock’s violin from a few houses short of the familiar glossy, black-painted door. It’s not a famous piece, but it pricks at his memory as if he ought to know it. Maybe it’s from an advert or one of Sherlock’s that he’s been working on in one of his random creative phases – John doesn’t have an ear for music, as Sherlock is fond of telling him.

He’s been playing a lot recently, although he almost always stops when he knows that John has arrived home. Sherlock’s habits haven’t really changed since they returned to Baker Street, merely intensified and many-a-night, John has woken to quiet string accompaniment – never enough to rouse him for more than a few minutes and he’s always slipped back into sweeter dreams than he’d been having. Sherlock never used to take care to play only the most restful scores before. That’s something John has been turning over and over in him mind for a few months now but he’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Knowing it’s most likely pointless, he sneaks in through the front door and up the stairs as silently as he can anyway. He doesn’t want to interrupt and if Sherlock is far enough into his own head maybe John can watch and listen for a little while without being noticed. There’s a focus to Sherlock when he plays – as if the man needed to be even more _himself_ than he already is – but it always captures John’s breath to watch him so transported. He plays effortlessly, eyes closed, and John wonders where Sherlock goes when the violin seems to take him. Perhaps there’s a music room in his Mind Palace, somewhere he can express the things he so ruthlessly represses in his dealings with the day-to-day, because his playing never lacks for emotion. Sorrow, hope, despair, triumph; John has heard them all and more spill from Sherlock’s fingers; unfettered and honest.

Making it as far as the sitting room door, John forgoes taking off his coat and shoes in favour of leaning against the doorframe, relishing the warm prickle of blood slowly returning to his extremities while he lets the honey sweet, spiralling notes of Sherlock’s playing wash away the greyness and fatigue of his day and truly appreciate being home.

Someone’s put a match to the fire laid in the grate and Sherlock’s already in his pyjamas and a washed-soft t-shirt despite it being barely later than seven o’clock. His feet are bare and he looks about ten years younger like this in contrast to the severe, tailored façade he usually presents. His hair is shorter now than he used to wear it. John finds that he misses the messy curls that probably used to take the vain berk twenty minutes to achieve. It used to almost brush the wood of the violin when he would tilt his head, eyes closed, lost in a conversation John had no language for. But that was before Sherlock left him behind for two years.

On some intellectual level John understands why the deception was necessary but, at the time, it shook him to the core. And he was shaken again when he realised that Sherlock had deliberately excluded him from his plans. He thought that he’d earned an exemption from the worst vagaries of Sherlock’s behaviour. Through months of friendship, close-calls, late night take-aways and fits of inappropriate giggles, John had imagined himself to be held in higher regard by the consulting detective than the poorly-concealed contempt he felt for the average, run of the mill human being.

John had imagined many things that weren’t true, as it turns out.

Even on the street, staring up at his friend, knowing, _knowing,_ what was about to happen, he hadn’t believed it, hadn’t for a second imagined that Sherlock would leave him alone with no more than a few cryptic words delivered in a breaking voice. Just one more lie to add to all the others John had let himself believe or had made up for himself to justify his trust in the man.

Since he’s been back John’s listened to Sherlock’s reasons, watched the way his eyes seem to be asking for forgiveness, even as he insists that what he’d done was the best and most logical way. It’s so very Sherlock to insist everyone else is at fault while he’s apologising. And John nods, agrees that it couldn’t have happened any other way. He even understands that Sherlock did it for him and for Mrs Hudson and for Greg. It all makes perfect sense. It’s logical. Except however many times he says the word ‘fine’ and however often he smiles away an awkward moment, his body remembers.

Those curls, matted with blood ( _not Sherlock’s_ ). The buzzing in his ears as he fell into a stranger’s ( _actor’s_ ) arms. Watching the world turn grey as they lifted him away ( _not dead_ ). The horror of the funeral; a simple service, a simple coffin ( _empty_ ). The hollow half-life he endured for two years ( _God, please, not again._ )

His flatmate is pretty tight-lipped about it, but he’s heard some of the stories from those lost years. He’s even seen the memory of them in Sherlock’s eyes, a shadow, here and gone when he thinks he’s unobserved. John’s mind understands, recognises the brilliance and the bravery and the sacrifice. His heart is harder to convince. It has no patience for reason or logic – it only knows that it was broken and that it is a scar that it will always carry.

Sherlock is watching him. He’s stopped playing; just now or some minutes ago, John doesn’t know. Has he given himself away? Has Sherlock observed the doubt whose roots John has ripped up a hundred times, only to have them creep back, shadow-like, with a careless word or an unguarded glance.

“That was beautiful. Don’t stop,” John urges, meeting his eye. “Chopin?”

Sherlock’s lips quirk the tiniest bit. Not Chopin, but Sherlock knows John already knew that. It’s an old joke.

“Very well. What would you have?” he asks, his bow poised above the strings, his gaze steady and direct, even challenging.

John takes off his coat and toes out of his shoes, leaving them abandoned by the wall. “Something soothing after a long, grey day,” John requests, fully expecting Sherlock to play something cacophonous, just to spite him.

Frowning in thought, Sherlock finally sets his bow and draws out the melody of _Moon River_ , slow and achingly pure.

Surprised and pleased, John settles into his chair and stretches his feet to the fire. They watched this film last month and John thought that Sherlock had slept through most of it, but apparently he’d been listening. John cannot stop his contented smile, as happy as he’s been in months. This might not be what he’d imagined for his life as a younger man, but it’s immeasurably more than he’d expected after his return from Afghanistan.

They’re doing better these days. Relearning how to live together again has given way to something that resembles what they used to have – when John thought that if he was patient enough Sherlock would reveal the thing that was growing between them, whatever it was. He’d never had a closer friend than the consulting detective and some days it seemed that there was even further for them to journey together. But what they have now is good. Sherlock is less frenetic, even during cases. He eats too, sometimes and sleeps more than he did. It might not sound like much, but quiet evenings watching old movies or sharing sections of the newspaper over the breakfast table are things he never thought he’d have again.

Some days he wonders if this simple pleasure is something that he’s done enough to earn. Maybe the time without Sherlock was the price he had to pay for this comfortable domesticity. Perhaps it was a bill that came due for the time he’d had with him before Moriarty condemned Sherlock to that lonely path with his own suicide.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s melts away but before John can gently protest, Sherlock has replaced it with a lullaby. John thinks it might be Brahms’ – it’s the famous one, whoever it’s by. He knows he looks knackered and winter pale but he doesn’t need it rubbed in. John sends a fond, if exasperated look at his flatmate whose lifted eyebrows and curled lip are the picture of innocence. With half a shrug Sherlock shifts his fingers again and draws a simple, familiar melody out for his amusement.

John rests his chin on his palm. “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star? You mean you haven’t deleted nursery rhymes?”

Sherlock continues to play as he replies. “Oh, come now. You don’t delete a classic, John. It’s one of the first things you learn to play.”

His friend is rarely playful these days and John knows better than to let the opportunity pass.

“Simple enough for an idiot to learn?” he asks with a disingenuous expression.

Sherlock blinks at him, frozen for half a heartbeat before he rises to the challenge and pulls the instrument away from his shoulder. His silk robe ripples like cream stirred through black coffee, then settles as he gestures to the spot in front of him with his bow.

“Let’s find out, shall we?”

Any weariness is forgotten. John cannot resist, no matter that he knows he should. Sherlock’s focussed attention is something he seldom achieves and something he still guiltily craves despite everything that’s happened. He stands up, accepts the violin from Sherlock’s hands and tucks it under his jaw. The chinrest is still warm and it’s unexpectedly intimate in a way that rushes sweetly beneath John’s skin from his crown to his heels. The wood of the instrument seems to still be vibrating from Sherlock’s playing, eager and easy, and John needs to take a breath suddenly.

Sherlock steps back, looks at him critically and resettles the violin so John’s arm is held out and up at an angle that can’t be comfortable for long even though John has known the man to play for hours at a stretch.

Grasping John’s opposite wrist, Sherlock turns his hand palm up and positions the bow at the ends of John’s fingers and shows him where to put his thumb in relation to the pattern those fingers make. Sherlock’s hands are warm and sure, and John can feel the slight calluses on the tips of the fingers of his left hand where the strings have bitten. Turning John’s wrist, Sherlock directs him to place the bow against the closest string, adjusting his hold and posture to his exact specification.  

Another wave of awareness washes through John. As if his senses are attuning to Sherlock being so close, his nerve endings are alive to the possibility of the next brush of skin. Deliberate touch is something else they rarely share – this is no chummy clap on the shoulder or a glancing brush of a hand when passing a cup, and there are no scrapes to be cleaned or bruising to assess. Directing John to pinch the string to the neck of the instrument with his third finger, Sherlock pauses momentarily, just as he does when some element of a case becomes clear. John risks a glance at his face, but the detective steps back suddenly and clears his throat.

“Away you go then,” he gestures avoiding John’s gaze.

The sound John creates is so horrific that he has new admiration for Sherlock’s skill; even when he’s _trying_ to sound awful, he doesn’t sound as diabolical as this.

Sherlock nods thoughtfully and bites his lips. “Dear God,” he murmurs and that seems to break the tension somewhat. John chuckles while his friend regards him with a bemused look.

Sherlock tries to explain the bowing action, he tries to demonstrate the pressure of the bow on the string, he tries to encourage John to press harder on some elusive spot that John could not find if he had a map. Sherlock mocks him with warmth in his eyes. John retaliates by selectively disregarding instructions while smiling innocently.

Sherlock’s just getting to the part where he will have to bury his hands in his hair and begin to look incredulous, so John pre-empts that with, “Right, I suppose you’ve never been bad at something in your life?”

“On the contrary, John, I just haven’t done so with such flair as you appear to possess!”

John laughs, but doesn’t give up trying to follow the increasingly exasperated instructions until finally Sherlock strides around behind him and lays his own right arm along the length of John’s, wraps a large, narrow hand over his and starts to bow for him. The pillock is tall enough that he can easily see over John’s shoulder and he recites the fingering to him as they play. “Cee, cee, gee, gee – third string, third finger, no, _third_ finger – aay, aay, gee.”

They struggle to the end of the verse, but John’s attention is divided between the sour notes and his knife sharp awareness of Sherlock’s sparseness pressed all down the right side of his body. Submitting his own jerky efforts to the smooth action of Sherlock’s bowing, he feels a jolt of connection that has nothing to do with playfulness. He knows the second that Sherlock stops watching his fingers and turns his head into John’s hair from the trickle of warm breath that touches his scalp.

For a perfect moment John imagines something has settled upon him – something like serenity, and an acceptance of what it has taken to achieve it – a lightning flash of where he’s always meant to be, no matter that it has taken him longer to find his way here than it might have. He feels words rise, like a flock of roused starlings, innumerable but of one mind. They push against his breath, against his tongue, seeking shape and sound.

Sherlock moves back suddenly, his eyes curious and wary as he comes around to stand before John. His lips roll in between his teeth and his smile is tentative when he gestures for him to continue. “Try again,” he suggests.

John blinks, the muscles of his right side objecting to the loss of heat and support. He smiles tightly in return, swallowing in a dry mouth. Did Sherlock feel that? Can Sherlock’s uncanny skills have uncovered something that John has taken such pains to obscure? Something that he has struggled to acknowledge, even in the quietest places of his mind?

“Thank you, but I think I’m a better audience than musician,” he admits, letting his arms drop.

Sherlock takes the instrument back. He’s never looked so awkward with it in his hands before. “Another time, perhaps,” he murmurs.

“Well I wouldn’t want to put Nigel Kennedy out of a job,” John sniffs, squaring his shoulders and forcing some brevity into his voice, leaning in a little as if sharing a secret. He could be overdoing it somewhat. He can’t tell.

“Very generous of you, John. He must be giddy with relief,” Sherlock offers, his timing off and his body stiff as if being impelled to remain still. He hasn’t even rolled his eyes at John’s populist choice of violin virtuoso.

There’s a pause between them that John feels like unpleasant static charge. Polite smiles fading faster than they can think of something else to say.

“I’m off to have a shower, then I’ll see about some dinner.” He shuffles towards the bathroom, carefully casual. “That Indian place you like, maybe?”

But a glance over his shoulder as he leaves the room shows him that Sherlock’s attention has wandered already as he cleans and replaces his violin gently in its case lined with crushed red velvet.

 


	2. Stars That Don't Twinkle Like They Should

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A visit from the wrong Holmes.

John cannot help the double take when he emerges from the loo to see the wrong Holmes brother sitting in Sherlock’s chair the following morning. He knows that Sherlock has already gone. He heard him shout up a quick, “See you later,” and something about Angelo’s for dinner.

Mycroft waits until John has filled and set the kettle to boil before he offers his good mornings. Their relationship could never have been described as warm, but even their common goal of Sherlock’s safety cannot disguise that since the whole Mary disaster, their tolerance of each other has become an effort. Try as he might, John cannot get it out of his head that Mycroft could have dug a little deeper, a little earlier with his ex-fiancée to discover the web of deceits and omissions that underpinned their courtship. And all the time, of course, Mycroft was one of the few who knew that Sherlock was working his way back toward London, uncovering and dismantling all that Moriarty had achieved; information he had seen fit to keep from him, even when John was clearly on the wrong path.

For every glimpse of regret he has seen from Sherlock, there has been not one from Mycroft. John had no liking for Irene Adler, but she’d been spot-on with Mycroft – he **is** the Ice Man. He was efficient once the situation had merited his intervention but, to this day, John still doesn’t know if he’d have stepped in at all unless it had benefitted his own interests in some way.

His offer of tea accepted, John makes two cups, depositing one beside his uninvited guest and taking his own to his chair. He sips and licks his lips, settling his dressing gown more closely around him. He wants to wait the pompous idiot out, but John knows his own limits for games such as these. “What can I help you with?” he settles on.

Mycroft glances up sideways from contemplating the nap of the material of his impeccably pressed trousers. He lifts an eyebrow, smiles insincerely and resettles his shoulders. “I was just passing. I wanted to see how you were settling back into life at Baker Street.”

“It’s been eight months,” John reminds him patiently.

“Has it been that long already? It’s as if you never left. So, how are you and Sherlock getting along?”

A sense memory of last night’s lesson steals through John, the scent of him so close, the radiated warmth of his chest at John’s shoulder and the wisp of warmed silk across the skin of John’s wrist. Moon River and stars that didn’t twinkle like they should have. He glances to the violin case beside Sherlock’s chair and then up into the sharpness of Mycroft’s gaze as a tiny triumphant glint reaches his eyes.

“Fine,” John nods. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

“That’s good, isn’t it? He certainly seems to have picked up where he left off. Back to his old self, wouldn’t you say?”

“Not quite,” John grits.

“He’s playing again, is he?” Mycroft taps the lid of the case with the nail of his middle finger, and John tries to stop the prickle that creeps up the back of his shoulders and neck.

“You should ask him for a recital,” he suggests.

“Oh, good Lord, no. He’ll only play Andrew Lloyd-Webber if he knows I’m in earshot,” he says cryptically and with a long-suffering roll of his eyes. “He’s very… reserved about his violin. It’s one of the few things he excels at that he doesn’t want to show off and you know how uncharacteristic that is.” Mycroft smiles as if he’s paid his brother a compliment and ignores John’s stony silence. “This was his first full-size violin. With a lifestyle as unconventional as his I’m sometimes surprised that he still has it.”

“Expensive, was it?” John asks meanly, locking eyes with his best-friend’s brother, earning him a beat of silence and a flicker of irritation, quickly smoothed away.

“How many luthier’s do you know?” Mycroft asks, interlacing his fingers and smiling blandly.

He loves to force John to change tack mid-conversation. And he just knows that the smug git hadn’t expected him to know what a luthier is.

“Well, only…” John’s hesitation earns him a lift of the older Holmes’ eyebrows. “…one. You can’t mean…”

“Now, that would be excessive, wouldn’t it?” Mycroft runs a finger along the edge of the violin case. “I did offer to buy him one, once. An original had become unexpectedly and quietly…available, shall we say?”

“How convenient,” John mutters, feeling his patience for this conversation dwindle more rapidly than usual.

“He declined, of course,” Mycroft continues, his demeanour relaxed but his eyes never leaving John’s face.

“The real ones are worth millions, aren’t they?”

“Ones with a decent provenance and pedigree are.”

“So, Sherlock’s isn’t…?”

“Oh, it’s very unlikely,” Mycroft says with unconvincing carelessness. “Similar in style though. Possibly the work of an apprentice of the man himself. Of course, this one too has a less than impeccable history. It was allegedly made for a court composer from a minor Bavarian princedom. It disappeared in the mid 19thCentury and was presumed lost forever.”

“And where did it actually go?”

“It’s a mystery. It showed up in Geneva in the early 1960s and came very quietly into the possession of a certain member of a prominent British family who gave it to Uncle Rudy with whom he was on rather good terms, I understand. Sherlock inherited it from him. I never had any talent for it but my brother… well…” Mycroft sips his tea and gazes at the carpet. “ He tells people that this one is a forgery he got for a good price from a man he knows in Tottenham Court Road, if anyone asks him.”

As usual, Mycroft leaves out as much as he tells in John’s opinion. It’s one of the things about him that makes John want to shake him, and it seems to be a Holmes talent. John firmly squashes down the horror he will feel if he thinks too long about having scraped out, ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,’ on a violin that Stradivarius himself may have touched and decides that he needs to have that moment without Sherlock’s bloody brother watching him.

“So…” John begins, but is unsurprised when Mycroft simply talks over the top of him.

“Sherlock has never played well with others – and I’m talking generally here, not musically, although goodness knows what kind of excitement he might have caused had he chosen to pursue a career in performance.” Mycroft pins John with a needle-sharp glance. “ I mean, Dr Watson, that he’s never had the capacity or inclination to share. And this is his most prized possession – the one thing he had me take for safekeeping while he was… travelling.”

John is determined not to give Mycroft the satisfaction of a reaction to that obvious trigger, so he simply smiles and raises an eyebrow.

“He even had the case refitted to be blast resistant.” He taps it with a knuckle this time. “Kevlar and carbon fibre. Other than when having it restrung, he’s never let anyone play his violin before.”

John has a terrible but familiar sinking feeling in his stomach and he can’t help scanning the bookshelves to try to spot the camera that Sherlock must have missed last time he swept the flat.

“Is there a point to this?” John asks tightly. There are several ways the next few minutes could go, and none of them are appealing.

“The point,” Mycroft insists, “is that my brother, for whatever reason, has chosen to share more of himself with you than any other human he has ever encountered. I would be stupid not to question the significance of that, and I am _not_ a stupid man. Nor is he, but he is, shall we say, _inexperienced_ in the nuances of social interaction.”

John tips his chin up and purses his lips. Mycroft has outstayed his welcome, such as it was. And now he is stepping dangerously close to the limits of John’s patience.

Mycroft sets his cup back down and regards John calmly. “When it became clear that our options in Moriarty’s game had narrowed considerably, my brother gave me a list of tasks to perform if he… in his absence. Most were quite brief and out of obligation I would imagine; naturally Mrs Hudson’s wellbeing, the rent on 221B, informing our parents – all very practical. His violin, however, had a list of requirements that were specific to the point of obsession. I shan’t bore you with the details, but it seemed that there were only two things that Sherlock struggled to leave behind, that he felt he had to instruct me in person on their care while he was gone.”

John observes Mycroft’s theatrics without comment, schooling his face to give away as little as possible. He has a premonition of what he is about to hear, something that has for so long been intangible, only potential, but is now being made real. His heart hammers in his chest and threatens to disturb his breath.

“His violin… and you, Dr Watson.”

John has to close his eyes for a moment as his world ripples and remakes itself – superficially identical but its foundations irrevocably changed.

“Regrettably I only partially succeeded with my second charge, but my shortcomings in that regard have been extoled upon at length, I can assure you. His displeasure can be quite… inventive, although in this case I dare say that he had good reason. Which leads me back to my question, Dr Watson. How _are_ you and my brother getting along now?”

Wiping a hand across his mouth, John finds he has no instant answer for Mycroft. His first instinct is to tell the nosy bastard to mind his own business, but despite all the convoluted conversation he thinks that Mycroft genuinely has Sherlock’s wellbeing and happiness at heart, and he cannot argue with that sentiment, even when it’s been handled so badly.

The man is a walking cliché; more British than the Queen, pompous, proud, condescending and entitled, Mycroft Holmes would have made a fabulous Bond villain. He probably couldn’t speak plainly if his very life depended on it.

But John can.

“I don’t know what you want to hear, Mycroft. The only thing I am sure of is that it has nothing to do with you. So unless you want to try to intimidate me with vague threats and menaces along the lines of the ‘if you ever hurt him I will make you regret it’ variety, I suggest you piss off and focus your surveillance on people who are a real threat to your brother.”

“And what makes you think you’re not?” Mycroft replies. “If recent history has taught us anything, it’s that my brother will go to extraordinary lengths to preserve your life, even to the detriment of his own. Even when he knows that his actions have forced a distance between you, eroded your trust and undermined all that he had hoped to preserve. What makes you so certain that his attachment to you isn’t the _greatest_ threat to his welfare?”

All pretence of a friendly chat is dropped now. Mycroft’s ice-chip eyes are focussed and merciless. John refuses to react, forcing the muscles in his face into bland dispassion, but the implication is unmistakable and it has hit hard. His voice, when he answers, is low and implacable.

“Because I know that I would rather die myself than ever lose him again and whatever place in my life he chooses will be _his_ decision, not yours, not mine.”

Mycroft strikes, snake-like, as if he already knew what John would say. He lifts an eyebrow and asks without missing a beat. “Even if he chooses to settle for less than he wants rather than risk trying for more and finding that he hasn’t earned it?”

Mycroft’s words have found their mark and lodge in John’s chest, squeezing his heart in a way that feels just like it did when he first caught sight of a familiar silhouette standing on top of a London hospital on a cool, grey day that John is still haunted by.

“Well, I can see you’re busy. I’ll see myself out, shall I?” Mycroft doesn’t wait for a response. “Goodbye, John. Please tell Sherlock that Mummy would appreciate a call when he has time.”

John waits for the front door to click closed before he drops his face into his hands and breathes. This is a lot to take in. Mycroft’s penchant for veiled threats and barely comprehensible parables is annoying at the best of times, and this… thing that is going on between him and Sherlock is not new; it has waxed and waned and almost flickered out a few times. It’s fragile and untested and John doesn’t know if he can gamble so much on its success. Because it’s everything he has. It’s everything he is.

It’s everything.

He needs to think but has no idea where to start. At a loss for anything else to help, John continues with his day’s routine in a distracted, unsettled fog. Perhaps the commonplace application of soap and water, toothpaste and some clothes will settle him and help him sort out his own feelings from the mess that Mycroft has landed him with.


	3. Like A Circle In A Spiral

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter the right Holmes on a gust of winter wind.

Sadly there are no epiphanies to be had in the shower. John’s mind loops and spins as he tries to narrow it down and define his feelings for Sherlock, but he finds that they are something he has lived with for so long he can’t find the edges of them anymore, entwined as they are with John’s life after Afghanistan. He’s become such an essential part of John, and of how he sees himself, that even while he believed Sherlock to be dead, the definition of John’s life became the lack of Sherlock’s.

He’d grieved excessively, if the relationship they’d shared had been that of flatmates or even of best friends, John knows that. He saw the uneasy looks on the faces of his friends and colleagues, even in the depths of his grief he had recognised that the reaction to the death of a friend, however close, was not the crippling numbness he had suffered. Only John knew that he was a widower without a marriage or a lost husband. Only John knew that the truth was that he’d lost the unacknowledged love of his life – and he’d grieved accordingly.

His relationship with Mary had been born of desperation – she was the first person to have shown him any glimpse of what remained of him after the bleakness of his loss. He had warned her of his past and she hadn’t batted an eyelid. Wrapped in grief, he hadn’t even noticed that she’d failed to offer him the same courtesy.

John had been amazed that there was enough of him left for anyone to notice, let alone claim to love. He had grasped her like a lifeline and she had listened to him explain his consulting detective and their extraordinary life together. John had thought her compassionate and supportive when all she’d been was another lie – a last line in the sand by what remained of Moriarty’s network; a sleeper cell strategically placed to intercept any scrap of information that might be of use to their dwindling number. And he’d fallen for it, and for her in a way. She’d made him feel again. He’d imagined himself to be worthy of life; if Mary thought him lovable, then perhaps he wasn’t as empty as he felt, perhaps if she believed that, then he might come to believe that too. So he’d planned to propose, like the idiot Sherlock had named him so frequently.

Because that’s what you do when nothing really matters any more.

Only not to shadowy, lying assassins, waiting for an opportunity to rise up the ranks of a headless, faceless criminal organisation; an opportunity that John had provided and that Mycroft had efficiently if ruthlessly removed once it became necessary.

For a while after Sherlock’s return and the indescribable joy of that, anything had felt possible and John had imagined something new - admissions, truths and adjustments. But somehow that joy had been expressed in them settling back into their old holding pattern and their default state of a loving but uneasy status quo. Any anger that he’d felt at Sherlock’s solution had soon been forgiven, but trust had been slower to return and even now he finds himself doubting the value of his place in Sherlock’s worldview. His own failure to move on for eighteen months after the fall became an admission of his own dependence on Sherlock and although he had no control over that, he still hates himself for how obvious it must have been to anyone who knew him. And to Sherlock and Mycroft of course.

He doesn’t consider himself a religious man, but he remembers bargaining and then pleading with a god he doubted for Sherlock’s return. He thinks it churlish of him to now ask for more than he’s already got. Sherlock is back in his life and he will never stop being grateful for that.

It’s enough – he’s told himself that every day since the man walked into that restaurant instead of his fiancée-to-be and changed everything. Again. He’d asked and he’d been heard. And it  _is_ enough.

It is.

But if more were on offer then he’d be lying if he said he wouldn’t snatch it with both hands. He’s found himself doubting that Sherlock is even capable of love like that. He knows how important he is to Sherlock, he understands the unique place he occupies, but Sherlock isn’t like anyone else John’s ever met. That’s one of the reasons John loves him in the first place. But relationships? Romantic love? Sex? These are all things that John has seen no evidence of, and in fact has seen far more evidence to prove their absence from Sherlock’s priorities. Not many who spend time with the man can avoid his views on sentiment – even the way he says it drips with contempt.

Frustrated, John scrubs his hair with a towel and looks in the bathroom mirror. “Watson, this won’t do,” he warns himself quietly and takes himself off to get dressed.

Even so, Mycroft’s words won’t settle anywhere; they beat in time with his pulse and whisper on his breath when he exhales. John can’t focus on anything and drifts around their shared space, touching random items – the skull, the book Sherlock has left flopped open on the desk, the cushion from his chair.

What does Mycroft think Sherlock wants? Deserves? His opinion of his brother, although well meant, is lacking in key elements. If Sherlock wanted more from their partnership, what would that look like? He doesn’t need anyone or anything as far as John can tell, although he seems to enjoy being told how brilliant he is, as if that’s news to anyone. He’s proven himself to be less than capable as Sherlock’s bodyguard, mainly because the idiot can run rings around him mentally and send him on dead-end errands with a nod of his head when he wants to be left to risk his own life. They’re already the closest of friends, Mycroft had no hand in that, it happened without his meddling – _despite_ his meddling. What does that leave? A teacher? A keeper?  A spy? A pet?

A sudden draught of bitterly air and the bang of the front door closing make John blink almost as if awakening. Sherlock’s footsteps on the stairs send him scurrying into the kitchen, pulling down a plate and a jar of jam to fill his restless, guilty hands.

Appearing around the frame of the door, Sherlock stops, alerted by something invisible to mere mortals. His eyes seem to have brought in the essence of winter as they sweep the room. His cheeks and lips are points of high colour against the paleness of his skin and the shadow shades of his hair. He slowly unwinds his scarf but leaves it around his neck.

“What did he want this time?”

John should have been prepared for this – of course Sherlock would know that his brother had visited.  He runs through the surreal conversation with Mycroft in his head, searching for something truthful but insignificant, but he can tell from the way Sherlock tips his head at John’s hesitation that it would be pointless to deflect. He chooses the least of this morning’s revelations. “To let us know that we’ve missed one of his little toys,” he says finally.

Sherlock’s eyes narrow and flick to John’s briefly before skittering away, and he begins a thorough search of the sitting room, disregarding anything in his path, but soon discovering the tiny camera, no bigger than a drawing pin head, on the centre of the mantel clock hands.

“Hmmm, new model,” he mutters, sounding grudgingly impressed. He turns to John to show him. “Mrs Hudson’s dusting fixation is in league with the British Government it would seem,” he quips, but his gaze lingers longer on John’s reaction than it should.

Throwing his coat and scarf at the sofa, he plucks the tiny electronic device between finger and thumb and disappears.

John quirks a smile when he hears the toilet flush a minute later and feels a little sorry for whoever is on surveillance duty today.

“So what is it the interfering prick thinks he needs to meddle with today?” Sherlock asks, re-entering the room, and pausing significantly when he notices John’s lack of toast, butter or knife.

John flusters to put down his plate and… blackcurrant jam? He doesn’t even like blackcurrant jam. He turns to find bread to put in the toaster, but quickly gives the whole scene up as a bad job to rest his palms on the counter, counting his breaths, facing away from Sherlock’s dagger-sharp gaze. Seconds tick by, each more reluctant to arrive than the last. John cannot find a single thing to say that won’t be incriminating, a deflection or an unwilling admission.

“John?” Sherlock asks softly, a hesitance in his voice that he rarely reveals. It squeezes the breath from John’s lungs to hear his friend so uncharacteristically uncertain and he turns, forcing a rueful smile onto his face.

He breathes out a sigh. “He wanted to know how you were getting on, since you’ve been back.”

“That’s something he couldn’t discern from his surveillance? It seems unlikely that his invasive monitoring of my every breath could have left him in any doubt of my physical health.”

“That’s what I said,” John agrees, not wishing to provoke another fraternal argument but not denying that it is distracting Sherlock from his own less than convincing performance.

“He must have had some other motive for his visit,” Sherlock ponders, tapping his lips with his fingers as he settles himself into his armchair.

John shrugs, a gesture that feels unnatural and false. “He said you need to call your mum too.”

Sherlock’s gaze is penetrating. It cuts through the carefully constructed veneer of truths that John wears these days. His eyes narrow, his head tips and John feels a cool tendril of panic twine through his guts and reach for his heart.

And even this is not new ground for them. Several times since Sherlock returned he has been convinced that his deceptions have been uncovered and the house of cards that he has so carefully constructed have trembled to their foundations. Each time, it has seemed impossible that Sherlock has not discerned and understood John’s willingness… eagerness… to return to Baker Street. But each time Sherlock has stepped up, toed the brink of the reveal and chosen to go no further. John is grateful for the reprieve each time and wonders if Sherlock’s uncharacteristic lack of tenacity is because he lacks experience of the cause of John’s affliction or if he knows and chooses to ignore it rather than acknowledge John’s attraction to him, thus negating the need to let him down gently. Maybe John’s skin is just that thick that he hasn’t taken the hint yet.

“John,” Sherlock says carefully, quietly.

“Let’s… let’s not,” John speaks over the top of him.

“If Mycroft has…”

“Sherlock!” John slowly lowers the hand he has thrown up between them, as if by that he could avert the disaster that feels close enough to taste now. He shakes his head and tries not to notice that Sherlock’s face is a study in misery. “Please. He came to speak to me. His message was for me. Can we leave it at that? Please?”

Sherlock’s eyes close momentarily, his unhappiness a suffocating weight for a split second, then gone. “Of course. Of course,” Sherlock agrees, with a wan attempt at a smile.

He taps his hands on the arms of his chair and unfolds himself to stand.

“Anyway, I’m off to the morgue. Molly phoned with some results that I need to verify.”

His scarf back around his throat and his coat flung haphazardly across his shoulders, Sherlock is gone before John even gathers the necessary breath to apologise or call him out on the blatant lie he just told.


	4. An Audience Of One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's music speaks for itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is for Mr Berty who has gracefully ceded his rights to the only working computer in the house, so I can bang these edits out!

The hours that follow Sherlock’s departure drag by interminably, marked only by his continued silence. Never the most enthusiastic conversationalist, Sherlock can usually be relied on to reply to John’s texts, even if only with a single word. “Idiot”, “No”, and “Wrong” are tied in first place as his most common responses, although “Tedious”, gets an honourable mention. But he refrains from giving Sherlock the opportunity to insult him for as long as he can bear it.

John starts out with casual inquiries when it gets to 6 p.m. and the places where the streetlights don’t reach are already pools of inky dark. He offers Thai food take-away, an offer of company if Sherlock is still at Bart’s and an uncharitable observation on the similarities between Anderson’s cognitive capacity and the Attenborough primitive life documentary he’s currently not watching.

The snow that’s been falling fitfully all day begins in earnest at 8 p.m., driving in a silent fury of flakes that John wouldn’t even have known about had he not been obsessively scanning the street every five minutes to check for a familiar outline stalking down the street.

Turning away from the window for the thousandth time, John trips over Sherlock’s music stand. He manages to catch it, but the sheet music that’s been left on it slides to the floor in a slithering, jumbled heap. He quickly bends and picks it up in an untidy armful when the top sheet catches his attention. It’s a piece by Mendelssohn but it’s Sherlock’s scribbled pencil notes in the margin that give him pause.

“ _A favourite of J’s_.”

John blinks and shuffles to the next piece. He only registers that it’s by a man called Bruch – the rest of the title fades into the background where Sherlock’s loopy scrawl records more detail.

“ _2/11 – 3.05 am nightmare. Seemed to reassure esp. 2 ndmov.”_

The third sheet he untangles from the pile is by Rimsky-Korsakov and is similarly notated.

“ _Hates it. Thank God!”_

“ _Smiled.”_

“ _Chopin? CHOPIN?”_

John finds himself smiling as he scans the sheets replacing them on the stand. Some just have crosses on, others have dates or single words. One has a circular teacup stain. He wonders at how long Sherlock has been playing with him in mind, making selections for the sole purpose of soothing John’s fractured nights and uneasy days. He wonders how many of these he has tried to attribute to Chopin just to make Sherlock roll his eyes at him. He wonders how many nights he has been Sherlock’s audience of one, unconscious or otherwise.

As he replaces the last sheet he notices that this one is written in pencil, the notes scattered across the page in Sherlock’s unmistakable, hurried hand. This must be the composition that he’s been working on recently and John struggles to follow the melody with skills that he hasn’t used in twenty years. He flips the page and realises that he’s been reading the second page, because there, at the top of the page with the time signature and key is a single word.

_John._

He’s been an idiot.

How could he have possibly thought Sherlock incapable of loving him? This collection of notes show more care and attention than John has been the recipient of in many years. To know that Sherlock was aware that John struggled as they slid back into their old lives. To know that he’d found a way – the only way he could express his concern for him that wouldn’t make it more awkward for John, to share his music with him, like love letters without a signature.

And if Sherlock will just come home, John will do his very best to find a way to reply to each and every piece.

One of them has to take the next step and he’s not a coward. An idiot, yes, but not a coward.

By eleven he’s checked with Molly (who hasn’t seen him all day), Greg and a selection from Sherlock’s merry band of London’s alternative cultures. The snow is already an inch or two deep on the pavements and on the roads it fills the tyre tracks of the dwindling number of passing cars swiftly.

John has promised himself that if there is no word by midnight he will take a deep breath, swallow his pride and text Mycroft. Hardly the most favoured of John’s options, he reasons that the only thing worse than asking Mycroft for help finding his brother is spending another minute not knowing whether Sherlock is safe and hiding from John, caught up in a case or… No, he’s not going to even let that thought reach a conclusion.

He glances at his watch again and tips his head to see as far as he can along Baker Street. The eerie silence of the world being fundamentally changed outside is only matched by the quiet of the flat and the way the snow flurries ebb and flow, one second almost pretty in the sodium glow and then so thick that John struggles to see the opposite side of the street.

He wipes a hand over his weary face, listens to the rasp of his stubble and closes his eyes.

“Fuck it,” he mutters, noting that his phone is telling him that it’s 11.36 p.m. – close enough.

It chirps and lights up before he has time to open his contacts. He swears when it makes him jump, but the flare of relief that Sherlock is texting him to ridicule his worries is short-lived when Mycroft’s name flashes up.

**SH at Bart’s. Will update you as details become available. MH**

For a couple of moments John thinks he’ll vomit. It’s all too similar. The feelings of foreboding, of something _not_ _right._ The trip from Baker Street to Bart’s. The sense of horror, seeing Sherlock throw his phone away. He can hear the whistling in his ears that drowned out everything else as he watched the flutter of Sherlock’s coat as he hurtled towards the ground.

Movement in the street below brings John back into the moment. A car has slid into the side of another parked further down the road. Although the crash was loud, no one seems to be injured and neither car appears to have sustained too much damage.

John makes a decision and runs upstairs to his room. He’s changed and on his way back down within two minutes, texting Mycroft as he rounds the bannister and descends to the front door, closing it behind him more forcefully than he normally would at this hour. He can’t wait for a cab in this weather. Britain is not known for its ability to adequately weather the white stuff and even with the reduced traffic, John knows he could be waiting here, going frantic when instead he could be moving.

**On my way.**

Stuffing his phone into his pocket, John turns toward Oxford Street and runs.


	5. A Road to Nowhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And then came the snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware of upcoming rating change and additional tags - love is in the air... and snow, but John has to get there first.

It’s been a good few years since London has had a snowfall this heavy or this sustained. John passes several minor road accidents and more blue flashing lights than he cares to see. The city’s drinkers, faced with the shock of the world turned to white at chucking-out time are making the most of it with several impromptu snowball fights breaking out and hoots of laughter as they attempt to remain standing despite their blood alcohol levels and the ice. John barely acknowledges them, only that he has to dodge around them if they are in his way.

He runs as he hasn’t in months. The slush-covered roads are turning icy as the temperature drops, but the pavements are still blanketed in snow and John picks his path with grim determination, placing his feet as carefully as he can while keeping a pace he knows he can maintain over the distance. It’s a toss-up between speed and stability – he wants to sprint until his lungs and muscles scream, but the snow and his training take over. He slips once or twice, but he doesn’t let the fear of falling distract him. He has to be there to catch him this time.

Picking his route as he goes, he chooses quieter roads, back streets and cut-throughs that Sherlock has led him down in the course of their work. It’s like the London that John knew before Afghanistan has been over-written - saturated with Sherlock Holmes and their adventures together. He’s always loved this city, but Sherlock has shown him another side to it; the extraordinary among the mundane, the hidden ways and the secrets that no one but they care to learn.

John glances about him as he paces himself, judging the likelihood of the underground still being operational at this time of night. It’s a possibility, but he can’t stand the thought of wasting precious minutes only to find he’s out of luck. He keeps an eye out for one of Mycroft’s dark cars, but what little traffic there is, is slow moving in the poor visibility.

Passing the British Museum, he cuts across one of the tiny square parks that London seems to have an abundance of, past the Law School and skirts the edge of Smithfield Market. Away from the A40 there is next to no traffic and the world narrows down to the beat of his boots bringing him closer to where he needs to be, the reach of the next streetlight and his litany of prayers for the safety of his friend.

His mind skitters over visions of hypodermic needles and filthy mattresses, hidden knives and stab wounds, collision trauma from skidding cars and soft tissue damage, but he drags his attention back each time to the pace of his footfalls, the thrum of his heart and the unending mantra that speeds his feet, “Just hold on, Sherlock. Just hold on, Sherlock. Just hold on...”

He’s beginning to feel the unaccustomed distance as he rounds the corner of Giltspur Street and the ugly silhouette of St. Bart’s rears up before him. He can’t help but skid to a halt and stare up at the roof, checking to make sure that there are no dark shapes there before he continues on his way.

At this time of night he knows that the gates on this side will be locked so he runs around to the King George V entrance. Light spills through the glass doors but most of them are locked and there’s no one at the reception desk. A security guard intercepts him as he finally finds the right door and tries to push his way inside.

“Where’s Sherlock? A & E? Where’s A & E?” John demands, frantically scanning the multitude of signs, all currently incomprehensible.

The guard blinks at him. “There’s no A & E here. You have to go to…”

John sets his shoulders and pushes past him. “He called. From here. He said Sherlock was here.”

“Sherlock… Sherlock Holmes? Well, then you must be Dr Watson!” The burly man looks overly pleased with himself at his deduction. “He’s usually in the morgue, I’ve been told. I don’t get over to that side of the hospital very often. Never seen him, only in the papers. Was proper glad when he turned out to be alive after all…”

John has whistling in his ears again. His heart is thudding in his chest in a way that doesn’t feel like it is all attributable to his late night run. He can hear it inside his head and every time he opens his mouth. At least he can almost speak in sentences again.

“So where have they taken him? He’s hurt, I need to catch…find him.” His voice sounds hollow, like it’s coming from a long way away. He paces back and forth, as if nervous energy will magically reveal the route he needs.

The guard stops rambling and looks harder at John. “I told you, there’s no A & E here. Cut backs, yeah? You have to go to the Royal London, they’re… Are you okay?”

“No, he’s here. He told me…” John picks a direction based on the amount of light and the lack of closed doors he can see. He sets off again, pushing himself along, his limbs heavy and resistant, like he’s running though brine.

“Hey! Hey, you can’t go down there… that’s not…

“I’ll go and… it won’t take a minute. I’ll just…”

When the corridor swoops slowly in front of his eyes, he stops explaining and concentrates on putting as many turns and swing doors as he can between him and the guard while breathing deeply and slowly. He doesn’t really know this part of the hospital - it’s changed a hell of a lot since he trained here  - he’s said that before, it seems familiar - but these days he only gets to see the labs and the morgue.

The further he moves through the dark corridors the more lost he becomes. The signs are still a jumble of acronyms and numbers and he has to force himself to focus when he finds a directory at the bottom of a set of echoing stairs. The smell of disinfectant is making him feel nauseous but he chooses a route toward Minor Injuries, hoping that they will have an idea of where to look next. Maybe by choosing that option he can will Sherlock into being there and unharmed.

Remembering he has a mobile phone, he pulls it out of his pocket, checking it for new messages and dialling Mycroft’s number as his dripping boots squeak their way down deserted hallways. Of course, there’s no answer so John leaves a terse message, hanging up as he rounds a corner and sees a nurses’ station, a beacon of subdued light and quiet conversation.

“Hello,” John says, forcing a smile onto his face. “I’m a bit lost. Can you point me in the direction of A& E?”

Two women in blue uniforms and a man in a green tunic turn to look at him as if he’s a maniac on the loose. And yes, he’s probably looked better, less wet and fatigued and desperate, but they’ve seen worse, surely.

“Sir, you shouldn’t be here,” says the older woman in an odd voice that isn’t quite a whisper, but will brook no argument.

“Yes, “ John agrees and this is the first useful thing he’s heard all night. “I should be at A & E. I’m looking for my friend, you see. I got a text that he was here and… well…” he smiles non-threateningly, spreading his hands. “I got turned around.”

They look nervous, despite John’s efforts. Their eyes flick to each other rather than looking at him. “There’s no A& E here. There’s Minor Injuries but they’re not 24 hours. Are you sure the text said…”

“Yes!” he barks, then swallows and lowers his voice. “Yes, I’m sure. So if you could find out where he is, his name is Sherlock Holmes.” He gestures to the computer screen between them and steps closer.

None of them move fast enough for John’s liking and he feels his grasp on his temper slipping.

“Sherlock Holmes. Look it up. Now!” His command echoes strangely in the dead air of the quiet hospital punctuated by the smack of his hand on the desk. The night staff jump in shock, but they don’t seem to understand that this is critical. Sherlock needs him and they are _still_ not helping his search.

_“John?”_


	6. Every Breath You Take

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's grip on reality seems to be quite tenuous - or is Mycroft bringing him tea?

“John?”

The voice is coming from behind him but he would recognise it anywhere. He missed it every single day for two years and the fact that he can hear it now floods his veins with sweet relief so fast that he staggers a bit as he spins to find Sherlock in just his shirt-sleeves and carrying two mugs. His eyes are wide and blinking, as if John is a puzzle piece that won’t fit.

Three strides and John is in front of him. “Are you okay?” he asks. His eyes scan for obvious injury, his hand grabbing at Sherlock’s shoulder as he takes in dark circles under Sherlock’s slightly red-rimmed eyes. Sherlock stares at him, his eyebrows drawing down in confusion.

“Are you okay?” John demands. There are too many things happening at once. Security is approaching from the direction John came. The nurses’ station crew are finally using the phone – _a bit late_ , John thinks because Sherlock is here, under his hands, tired, but upright and alive.

God, he’s _alive!_ Still alive!

Instinctively, he runs his hands over Sherlock’s skull but finds nothing but thick, slightly greasy curls. He realises with detached interest that his fingers are searching for a skull fracture that isn’t there. That never was. Yet that knowledge doesn’t seem to be enough to stop him from checking for a pulse at Sherlock’s throat and whether his pupils are reacting normally to light.

“I’m fine, John. Are you alright?”

The way Sherlock’s eyes flicker over his shoulder and the slightly inflected smoothing of his tone speak volumes. He has no idea what John is talking about let alone what he’s doing here.

With one final squeeze, John forces his hands to loosen and let go. His breath hitches as he steps back, while every instinct in him is telling him to _hold on_ , _protect from harm_ , _prevent injury._

He rubs his hand over his eyes and pinches the top of his nose, breathing deliberately.

_In._

_Out._

_Don’t lose it._

_In._

_Out._

_God, don’t lose it!_

“John! John, look at me.”

Pressing his shaking fingers to his lips to stop the torrent of emotion from spilling forth, John complies and opens his eyes.

Sherlock has lost the coffee cups somewhere and is crouching in front of him. He’s surprised to find himself sitting in one of the uncomfortable visitor’s chairs in an unoccupied private room. The bedside lamp is angled away from them casting gentle light and soft shadows.

He has no recollection of how he got here.

“I’m fine, John. Look,” Sherlock takes John’s other hand from where it is curled into a fist on his knee. He pulls until John relents and allows him to place the hand on the back of his skull.

Slowly John uncurls his fingers as he feels the warmth of Sherlock’s hair. He spreads his hand through the mess of dark waves and marvels at the way Sherlock leans slightly into his palm. Tears prick John’s eyes and run unchecked down his cheeks. His heart aches - actually physically aches and although its slower now, he can still feel each beat.

Sherlock’s face is open; compassionate without pity. “What happened?’ he asks quietly.

“He told me I was a danger to you,” John whispers hoarsely through the fingers that were supposed to stop such unguarded words.

Sherlock takes less than a second to deduce. “Mycroft.”

“He said you lacked the social nuances that would tell you…”

Vaguely, John is aware that he’s talking bollocks. This isn’t what Sherlock is asking because that conversation happened before Mycroft’s call, or… What was the question again?

John squeezes his eyes shut and breathes through his nose. When he opens them again Sherlock is scrolling through the messages on his phone – he must have picked his pocket again. Strangely, distantly, John finds this reassuring and realising the insanity of that he chuckles, slightly hysterically.

Sherlock eyes him carefully, then returns his attention to the phone. His gaze hardens and his thumb flies over the keyboard for a moment before he sets the phone aside.

“He said to come to Bart’s, that you were here, and I thought… and I thought…that you…”

“Understandable given your heightened anxiety and our less than cheerful history with the hospital,” Sherlock agrees. His hands are on John’s knees, warm through his sodden jeans – the only part of him that is.

“I thought you… it all came back. It’s like I was there again. I saw you, I watched you and I couldn’t… There was nothing I could do to stop it. I’m a soldier, I’m a doctor and there was _nothing_ I could do to save you. What was the point, if I couldn’t save you?”

His throat aches even as his voice becomes more shrill. His chest burns, his fingers, still pointlessly pressed to his mouth, are trembling. John knows these are symptoms of panic or PTSD, it’s the way his attention flies from point to point, never settling, the way his head spins. It’s the alarming thudding of his heart and the way he cannot seem to take a deep enough breath to stop the anoxia symptoms.

“…with me, John. Breathe with me. You know what this is, just breathe when I breathe, okay?”

The sound he makes is high and inhuman, but Sherlock pulls John onto the floor with him, propping himself against the wall and forcing John to turn in his arms and press his back against Sherlock’s chest.

“I’ve got you, John. Breathe with me.”

Tears scald John’s face and the sobs that have finally broken free tear through him wracking his entire body, but despite all this John can feel Sherlock’s heart, feel his chest rise and fall as his ribcage expands and contracts, even and unhurried. He can feel Sherlock’s arms folded carefully around him, not restraining him, but supporting… clever Sherlock, knows not to trap him. With palms pressed flat against his torso, warm through his cold, clammy clothes, he encourages John to follow his breaths.

It takes an unimaginable amount of concentration and effort to breathe through the shuddering, and the grasping, twisting uncertainty of his ability to respond to Sherlock’s calm voice, rumbling in his ear and vibrating through his upper body. He’s exhausted by the time he feels like he isn’t about to suffocate at any moment. He lets his head fall back, feels the solidness of Sherlock’s shoulder and just rests there.

“I’m not going anywhere, but I’m going to move my hand for a moment, alright?”

John manages to grunt an acknowledgement and Sherlock’s embrace slowly loosens but is quickly returned. He has dragged a blanket from the bed and has draped it haphazardly across them both.

“There – a shock blanket for two. That’s what paramedics always try to do to me whenever they’re attending a crime scene.”

“Y’make a good nurse,” John slurs.

Sherlock huffs indignantly, then chuckles into John’s hair, shockingly warm against his scalp. And he must be getting better because he’s beginning to register things that should be obvious, like the numbing bite of his cold, wet clothes and the twitchy feeling of the adrenaline leaving his bloodstream. He’s chilled everywhere the blanket doesn’t reach, and burning all down his back and where Sherlock’s arms still encircle him. His bum has gone all to pins and needles where they have been sitting here so long.

“You must be pretty uncomfortable there,” John murmurs.

“I’ve had worse,” Sherlock assures him, so John accepts that and just concentrates on how, despite all the discomfort, he’d stay here forever if he could find an excuse to.

“Go away,” Sherlock says.

John jerks in surprise – did he fall asleep?

Sherlock’s arms instinctively tighten around John. “Not you,” he assures him.

John opens his eyes and lets his head roll enough to see the door.

“I ought to check Dr Watson’s vitals,” a timid looking man is brandishing a blood pressure cuff, but already retreating in defeat at the glare that Sherlock must be levelling at him.

“No, wait...” Sherlock growls and bows his head to bring his lips to John’s ear. “I’m monitoring your temperature, pulse and respiration – is there anything else I should be doing?” he murmurs.

“I’m fine,” John says quietly.

“No, I was right – go away. And bring us some tea!” he calls after the man who seems all too happy to comply with the first request at least.

“We ought to get you some dry clothes…”

“Wait,” John says, his thoughts sluggish and reluctant to resolve into something coherent. “You’re not hurt? So why are you here?” He wants to turn and see for himself when Sherlock explains but that would need him to move and he’s already decided that this is the best place he could possibly be, given the circumstances.

Sherlock hums thoughtfully but doesn’t relinquish his hold on John. “My father. He and Mummy have been staying in town for a couple of days. They went to the theatre and he slipped on the ice on the way out. He’s being settled on the ward now – they had to operate to reset the ankle.”

John feels suddenly wide-awake, craning around to look at Sherlock’s tired, bloodshot eyes and his creased shirt. The blanket drops away letting the cool air reach John’s shoulders.

“Sherlock! What are you doing? You should be with him! Why are you here? I can’t believe you stayed here when your dad is…”

“He’s fine, John. He was transported here from A & E at UCL earlier this afternoon. They didn’t have a bed for him -  a bit of a run of similar injuries. Apparently it’s been snowing.”

John manages a small huff that will have to take the place of a laugh, because he’s knackered. Maybe it was the run or the anxiety or the panic attack or a combination of the whole lot, but he could fall asleep here right now, wet clothes and all, and sleep the night through if it weren’t for worrying about Sherlock’s discomfort.

“He’s okay? How’s your mum?”

“Mmmm. Fine. Mycroft has sorted everything out, proving that he is useful for something other than eating cake. She’s going to stay with him while father’s here. They’re both delighted by this. We’re just waiting to talk to his doctor, then I was coming home. I should have texted you but my battery…”

“I’m not your… You don’t have to tell me where you are. I’m not…”

And this is the crux of the matter. It’s taken them months and months of hesitations and misdirections and uncertainties. Unspoken words and good intentions. In some ways, John thinks, it’s fitting that they’re back here at the site of Sherlock’s greatest sacrifice to acknowledge finally that they need to get one thing established once and for all.

So, what they are to one another?

John has had a number of relationships in his life, and he’s not just thinking about lovers. There are important people in your life, people that define you, people who leave their mark on you. Sherlock is perhaps the most defining relationship of his life; no one has made so much difference to the way John thinks of himself. Soldier, son, doctor, brother, veteran; none of what he was before could have saved him from the slow death that awaited him after his return from Afghanistan. But then a mad, slightly dangerous, posh bastard came along and gave him new descriptors. Flatmate. Marksman. Conductor of light – whatever that means. Confirmed bachelor. Blogger. Partner. Friend.

And John Watson had stopped existing and begun to _live_ again.

The problem is how does he put that into words? How does he explain to an emotionally inexperienced adult male that he has such power over John that he can make or break him with a word? That John is devoted to him in a way he’s never experienced before. That John will happily play whatever role Sherlock has for him in his life as long as he doesn’t send him away. That _love_ is a curious word and it can mean so very many different things, but that John is pretty sure that there aren’t many definitions of the emotion that John doesn’t feel for Sherlock.

“My brother is an imbecile. He knows our history and the associations we have with this place. He should never have left such an ambiguous message.” Sherlock quietens behind him, but John knows there’s more to be said and that his friend is struggling for the words, so he waits, as close as he can physically get to Sherlock without it becoming sexual and lets Sherlock work his way through it.

“When I jumped, John, it was never my intention that you would suffer. I misjudged the significance you placed upon our friendship. I considered it to be rather more one sided than it appeared to be. So when I heard that you… when you…”

John takes pity on him. If it’s difficult confessions that are tonight’s topic, then John has plenty.

“Mary was a mistake. She would have been a mistake whether she was part of Moriarty’s network or not. It wouldn’t have lasted, even if we’d made it to the marriage vows. I think I knew that at even then. Every time I looked at her, I wondered why I didn’t feel as much for her as I did for you.  I was comparing my life with her to life with you, how your laugh was more satisfying, how your eyes were warmer, how tidy her place was and how the only part of our flat that was organised was your sock index and how that should have infuriated me, but I somehow found it charming, how I would scan the fridge for experiments every time I opened it even when you’d been gone for months…”

When John trails off, losing the thread of his words in the remembered feelings, Sherlock picks up the slack again. It’s like two separate conversations, related , converging, yes, but starting on different pages of the same story.

“I understood that you appreciated our partnership, but despite what I thought, your reasons were never stated. I don’t mean to sound callous, but you would never let anyone labour under the misapprehension that we might be…more. So if I wondered, on occasion, if what you felt for me might be something other than you had admitted or even realised, I accepted that it wasn’t something you would ever want to explore in any way that might lead to…”

“Sherlock,” John sighs, but, ironically, there are too many words and they all crowd him to be spoken. But Sherlock is still speaking, quiet and determined.

“I don’t have a lot of experience with…” his hand makes an abortive gesture that John understands immediately. It’s not often that Sherlock is at a loss for the right words, he’s usually Mr Scrabble score, but he is trying to explain emotions with a rudimentary and untried vocabulary. “I expected you to be surprised by my return, even pleased. I’d thought about it for so long and planned so many ways to tell you, and in none of them had I factored your grief or the possibility that you might have moved on. If nothing else, that  demonstrates my naivety most succinctly. If anyone needs to be forgiven, it is I. I was the instrument of my own downfall. I saw but I did not observe.”

They sit in silence for a while. Neither of them moves to break the moment in time that they have carved for themselves. There’s more to be said, but John is adding some pieces that he hadn’t known about, changing things around in his head and coming up with a new angle to look at.

It’s strangely easy to be held like this, Sherlock’s warm hands against him and his thumbs rubbing idle patterns against his ribs. John wonders if he is suffering psychosis, it all seems so surreal and peaceful, so unlike their normal life.

John smells the tea before the door is even fully opened grounding him back firmly in a poorly lit side room of an NHS hospital in the arms of his best friend. Surprisingly it’s Mycroft who is carrying two mugs and John briefly wonders if he has dropped off again. Mycroft requests tea and then usually forgets to even taste it – he doesn’t fetch it for people.

Sherlock’s brother isn’t capable of looking apologetic, but he does look resigned to whatever verbal assault he’s due as he stands on the threshold, silently asking permission to approach. When neither of them react, he enters and lets the door swing closed behind him. With no jacket, his shirtsleeves rolled up and his waistcoat unbuttoned, he looks almost human. He’s lost something of the governmental caricature and gained a bit of a personality. Just like Sherlock, underneath the intellect and the sneer Mycroft is fallible, imperfect and shockingly mortal.

He puts one mug into John’s grasp but won’t catch his eye, and places Sherlock’s close by when he makes no effort to remove his hands from John’s torso.

Breathing in audibly, Mycroft begins. “Father is fine, sleeping now and all indications are that he will heal with no complications. Mummy and I are going home and will be back here in the morning… later in the morning. When you are ready there is a car and driver at your disposal at the Giltspur Street entrance.”

He seems as if he wants to say more but Sherlock turns his head away and Mycroft, after a few moments, takes it for the dismissal that it is.


	7. May It Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kisses by firelight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> James Horner's "Rooftop Kiss" from the Amazing Spiderman Soundtrack was playing on a loop while I wrote this - in case you want some mood music to read by.
> 
> Tiny snippet of dialogue borrowed from Season 3 here too - thank you SM and MG.

The Holmes brothers have expedited their journey back to 221B; Mycroft by dint of green traffic lights all the way and the dark Range Rover that drives as if there were no ice at all, and Sherlock by scowling to anyone who tried to impede their progress through the hospital to reach it.

John has hung on to the blanket Sherlock had taken from the bed and wrapped them in and has stayed cocooned in it in the back of the car, resolutely not worrying about his wet clothing on the leather. The heated rear seats have begun to chase out some of the damp and not even the Rover’s most high-tech gadgets has been able to keep up with the condensation forming on the inside of the windows as they slice through the falling snow and the silent streets.

Turning into Baker Street, Sherlock catches John’s eye and deliberately draws a smiley face on the window with his finger. It matches the one on their sitting room wallpaper and it makes John chuckle, the first sound they have made since the journey began.

John’s legs have turned to some combination of lead and jelly – they don’t want to bear his weight or, indeed, move.  Logically, he knows that this is because of the temperature and the run and the shock and the panic attack and anyone would be affected, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want to walk back into his own front door under his own steam.

He breathes in through his nose, squares his shoulders and steps out of the car, which melts off into the night, turning the snowflakes red and orange long after the shape of the car itself has disappeared.

Sherlock is watching him, hands in his pockets, snow gathering in his hair and on his shoulders, catching the scattered light and John’s breath. For a moment, he thinks he is going to offer him an arm, but instead, Sherlock gestures him to take the lead and John begins the thousand-mile journey to the front door, up the stairs and into their sitting room. He makes a pretty good go of it, and only accepts Sherlock’s help when the stairs turn on the little landing and he is faced with one more climb before he can collapse.

Sherlock’s hand is warm and he is deceptively strong for a man who could stand to put on a few pounds. His touch seems to ground John, giving him a fixed point in a world that isn’t quite as he left it. He unlocks doors, switches on lamps and steers John with apparent ease.

Leaving him on the sofa, Sherlock stirs some life into the dormant fire, throws his coat over a chair and clatters off to boil the kettle.

John is tired to the core and he recognises that something has changed between them tonight but he’s been here before. He was so certain that the return to their life at Baker Street would herald the beginning of a new understanding between them – an acknowledgment of the importance of their relationship. And in some ways it has, but it hasn’t shifted as far as John hoped it would. And now they are back here, after the rawness of the hospital, John can’t help but feel that another opportunity to tell Sherlock has slipped through his fingers. For a man who strives to show no emotion, Sherlock certainly does provoke them in others. John feels like Mother Nature herself has decided to teach him a lesson.

Sherlock sticks his head around the door and peers at John for a moment before disappearing again. He’s aware that might have happened a few times – he’s not really processing time very well at the moment, missing slices of activity when things magically appear or disappear. In one of his more dynamic moments, John decides that the fire looks very inviting and he half walks, half crawls to the hearth and closes his eyes to soak up the radiant heat.

When he opens them, Sherlock is there too, holding out his pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt. John stares at them stupidly.

“We should have got you out of those wet clothes back at the hospital. If you become hypothermic on top of everything else that’s happened tonight, it will just complicate matters further.”

John nods, because Sherlock sounds very earnest, and that’s usually what John does when that happens.

God, he’s tired.

Sherlock quirks an eyebrow at him and extends the pyjamas to him again, before he sighs and sets about unlacing John’s boots.

With the gift of hindsight, John knows that this is the bit he will wish that he’d been awake for, because when he opens his eyes again, he’s in his pyjamas, lying on some quilts and tucked under more layers of blankets and bedspreads than he knew they owned. Sherlock is dressed in his own pyjamas next to him on the floor, lit by the glow of the phone in hand. John doesn’t move, just breathes in the warm, Sherlock-scented air and ponders whether that’s from the blankets or from his proximity.

John definitely feels more present now, vaguely aware that he’s made a bit of an idiot of himself. He replays the bits that he can remember clearly; the run, the cold, the jolt to his heart each time he slipped, then later the sight of Sherlock, so broken open seeing him shout at the nurses, and later still, the struggle to comply with Sherlock’s demands that he match his breathing, snatches of the quiet conversation and his own fumbled truths. The memories feel like an incomplete dream, something that slips away from him as hard as he tries to hold on to it.

“You’ve only been asleep for an hour, it’s still not yet three a.m. Go back to sleep, John,” Sherlock says quietly without looking away from his screen. The combination of the backlight and the fire’s flickering make bright points of his eyes, his nose and his cheeks, soaking the rest of him in gentle, sepia shadow.

The fire sighs and settles, changing the light again. The mantel clock ticks and can it really be only yesterday morning that Sherlock was stalking around their flat, like a perturbed giraffe, looking for Mycroft’s latest surveillance devices? John notices the quiet next; London is never quiet. There’s always something. They live too close to the centre for the traffic to stop at night, but it’s more than the lack of traffic noise. It’s a feeling that everything is paused or supressed and John remembers that quality of silence from his childhood. The snow must have stuck around and when the sun comes up, he knows he will see a transformed London, made new and rendering the familiar strangely unrecognisable.

He turns his eyes on Sherlock. He has a notepad on the floor beside him on which he scribbles intermittent notes. Feeling fanciful, John thinks he can see the years they have spent together and apart and together again on Sherlock’s face. There was an unearthly quality to him when they first met – he was less jaded and more innocent, as bizarre as that might sound for a former drug addict and a gleeful wrangler of the most grisly crimes. Now there’s more in his face than four years might account for. There’s gravity and awareness and a flicker of self-doubt that was never there before. He brought it back from Serbia or wherever he was. Or he acquired it very soon after his return – a thought that makes John’s breath uneven.

“I never said thank you.”

“There was no need,” Sherlock murmurs without looking up from his mobile. John’s long past wondering how he does it, but somehow Sherlock knows what John’s been thinking.

“I disagree, so thank you, Sherlock.”

Sherlock’s eyes flicker over to John. His shoulders are tense and he licks his lips as he slowly breathes out.

“I never said sorry,” he replies quietly, his eyes unfocussed now and trained on the shadows on the wall. “I asked forgiveness and explained and insisted, but I never apologised. I should have.”

“There was no need,” John smiles gently in response to Sherlock’s quirked lip.

“I disagree...” Sherlock recites, trying to complete their little game.

“No,” John says over the top of him and hurries to explain when Sherlock stiffens again. “No more. You’ve done enough and I’ve… well, I’m glad we’re here now. Whatever happened, happened and now here we are. We get another chance. So…” John has to take a breath, but before he can, Sherlock puts down the phone and turns to him, earnest but uncertain.

“John, there’s something I should say, I… I’ve meant to say always and never have…”

And here it is – the moment, just like all the other moments he has horded the memories of, when it must surely be said, this thing, this connection, this truth that John has been carrying around with him for years now.

It’s the easiest leap of faith he has ever made.

“I love you,” John states simply, all his walls crumbling, all his inhibitions stripped back by the combination of the evening’s extraordinary events and weariness and this perfect moment – a breathing space, out of time when even London is silenced. John doesn’t think he could lie now, even if he needed to.

Sherlock’s intake of breath is audible, but not shocked, more confused. His eyes narrow and in the firelight they look like slivers of copper. For long seconds, he just stares and John wonders whether his words have broken something in Sherlock’s brain, but he waits silently. He blinks a few times and watches as John snuggles further into his blankets and prepares to go back to sleep.

It is done.

Whatever must happen now, must happen, but the relief of it, the sheer weight of it off John’s shoulders and out in the wide world is dizzying.

“So when you say… what you said… are you saying…?”

John cannot find any better words to explain to him, so he fumbles for Sherlock’s hand and pulls it to his mouth, places a kiss on his palm and lets his fingers learn the pattern of blood vessels on Sherlock’s wrist.

Sherlock’s attention is captured by John’s touches and there’s an expression on his face that John can’t quite place. “You’ve been looking at my music,” he says softly, which is not what John was expecting, but he concedes that it has played its part in this moment.

“You’ve been playing for me for months,” John counters, weaving his fingers through Sherlock’s while his quicksilver eyes follow the movements. He doesn’t deny it but he doesn’t admit it either. He’s sitting very still as if waiting for something to break the spell, as if he can’t quite trust that this is happening. 

“This is the bit where you call me an idiot,” John adds and watches for Sherlock’s answering smirk before he closes his eyes.

The fire settles again and John feels Sherlock shifting against his side, probably going back to his phone and whatever esoteric piece of information he needs at 3 a.m. They don’t actually have a case on at the moment, which is good because it means that Sherlock can spend some time accompanying his mother to and from the hospital and…

John gets less than a second’s warning  - warm breath ghosting across his cheek – before Sherlock kisses him. It’s careful, gentle and little more than Sherlock’s lips placed against his own and lingering there. The tension rolling off Sherlock’s body is palpable; he’s almost vibrating with it.

Sherlock’s mouth is exactly as John imagined, soft, full and tentative. He wants to grasp Sherlock’s head and spend an hour learning the shape of his top lip, pull it into his own mouth and find the key to its perfection, where this softness gives way to stubble, how his cupid’s bow tastes and whether it’s as prominent when he kisses as when he speaks. And then repeat the whole thing with his bottom lip. But Sherlock is clearly uncomfortable, his body rigid with stress everywhere but his lips it would seem. He’s unpredictable – an unknown, so John keeps his eyes shut and lets him learn at his own pace. He lets his own lips part, just the tiniest bit to carefully let Sherlock know he’s with him in this.

It seems to encourage his friend to greater daring, and he slowly rubs his bottom lip across John’s top one and touches the very tip of his tongue against the bottom one before pulling back a little.

John doesn’t open his eyes but he smiles and sighs. He’s never felt such peace – it’s like that piece that Sherlock plays late at night, the one that makes John think his heart will break from the beauty of it, the yearning and the hope that Sherlock has been pouring into it for months. They aren’t a part of the piece, he now knows –they are Sherlock’s way of admitting emotion. The love letters he would never write. The confessions he could never find a way to phrase.

The next kiss is bolder; sweeter and deeper. Sherlock tips his head so he can find an angle he likes. His hand strokes down John’s neck and shoulder carefully, as if expecting to be stopped. Slowly it burrows beneath the blankets to press into the centre of his chest, feeling his heart rate but being distracted by the short sparse hairs there.

John is simply content to be kissed. And if Sherlock wants to catalogue his reactions or his mannerisms or the bits of him that Sherlock hasn’t had access to previously, then he’s fine with that too. He’s never been afraid by Sherlock’s uncanny focus, the way his head will tilt and his eyes will flit from point to point as he finds the information he needs about someone. He’s never hidden his affection for his friend – only how deeply it runs and how much of it there is, relying on Sherlock’s inexperience in such matters to keep his secret for him.

Accepting more and more of Sherlock’s weight as his kisses become slowly more confident and his touches more deliberate, John is surprised and mildly irritated when they are withdrawn suddenly.

“John?”

John untangles his arms from the all-enveloping blanket mountain he’s under and reaches for Sherlock’s waist.

“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Sherlock says hesitantly. His head bowed, John can’t see his eyes, but in the twitch of his fingers and the set of his shoulders John sees uncertainty.

“Ah, um…okay,” he agrees hollowly. He knew this was a possibility, but the sudden, pervasive ache that forces the air from his lungs and freezes the blood from his heart outwards is immediate and merciless.

“Oh! Oh, no!” Sherlock clarifies, gesturing between them. “ _This…_ this is an excellent idea – really top class idea. One of the finest ideas I’ve ever known,” he breathes quickly. He looks ridiculously young all at once, his eyes wide and a small smile on his kissed-pink lips. “I meant… you were borderline hypothermic two hours ago and, added to your condition at the hospital, I wonder if now is the time to…”

The relief is like the warmth of a mouthful of good brandy, rushing through him and reaching every cold place in his body at once.

Sherlock shuts his mouth with a snap when John runs a thumb deliberately across his pleasingly swollen lower lip, kiss-slick and rosy. Sherlock clears his throat twice and takes a calming breath before he says, “Right, well your manual dexterity seems to be unimpaired. But… John, my concern is that you might come to regret anything that you…”

“Sherlock?”

“Hmm?”

“Shut up?” John suggests. “If you think I’m sleeping anywhere but beside you tonight, then _you’re_ an idiot.”

“Okay,” Sherlock blinks, inhales a little sharply then settles onto his back, their joined hands on his belly.

The clock marks less than thirty seconds before Sherlock stirs again.

“I don’t have a lot of history with… well, any of this kind of thing, but please don’t mistake my hesitance for anything but lack of experience.”

“Sherlock, I’ve been wanting you for the longest time, do you really think I’ll give up now? Take as long as you need. Forever if you want. I don’t care, as long as we are together.”

Edging himself closer, Sherlock carefully lays himself down near John, who is having none of that. He drags several layers of blanket over them, so they are both covered and curled together quite comfortably. The fire isn’t throwing out as much heat as it was and the flat is cooling down accordingly. John’s cocoon is toasty, two duvets beneath them and several blankets above – it’s like building camps as a child. A wave of well-being and tiredness washes through him and he lets it tug him down closer to sleep.

“Thank you,“ Sherlock whispers into his shoulder. “For… when you thought I was hurt – thank you for coming to me.”

“Where else would I be?” John slurs. Sherlock finally relaxes and the peace rests on them, like another layer of silence until John adds, “Idiot.”


	8. Open Your Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new day and a new world order for our favourite pair of idiots.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter where the story gets its E rating - you can skip it if that's not your bag - I think you've got the picture. 
> 
> Wow! So I got it done in a day - it didn't need as much heavy lifting as I recalled. Thank you Lina and 88thParallel for listening to me angst about this story and to you, dear reader for giving this story a go.

Something wakes him, some vague awareness of change. Maybe it’s the light, maybe it’s the noise from Mrs Hudson’s radio, a distant, unintelligible burble, maybe it’s the chilly nip of the flat now the fire is reduced to cinders and soot.

Or maybe it’s Sherlock, standing at the window, his curls in disarray, haloed out around his head in the ethereal, unmistakable light of a snowy dawn that filters into the room.

His moment of wonder is there to see on his upturned face, timeless and guileless. Lost in thought, his hand holds back the heavy curtain. In his ratty t-shirt and pyjamas, feet bare on the carpet he resembles a child peeking out of a window on a December morning, stunned to find his wishes for snow at Christmas have been granted.

John cannot help but smile and Sherlock cannot possibly have heard it but he turns his head at that very moment and returns it. And the lines and the tired eyes and the stubble are all _John’s_   Sherlock. Suddenly it’s John who believes Christmas must have come in the night – he has that same feeling of warmth and peace and safety along with a happy champagne bubble thrill in his chest. He has no idea what is going to happen – maybe nothing, maybe something wonderful – but at this split second he is happy, perfectly happy in a way he knows he will remember long after the outcome has unfolded.

Sherlock tips his head to one side, his eyes soft but inquisitive. He wets his lips and hesitates. “The thing with my sleeve the day before yesterday… when my sleeve brushed your wrist when you were playing and again, just now… you… do you know you do that all the time?”

“Do what?” John asks, his voice croaky and unused.

“You… stop. It’s… your pupils dilate and your breathing changes and you stare.”

So Sherlock’s known all along. So much for being circumspect. “Sorry, I…”

“No!” Sherlock interrupts. “No… it’s fine. It just confused me. I assumed, because you never took it further, that it was unconscious, a supressed or latent desire.”

“The staring might be unconscious, but my desire is neither latent nor very well supressed,” John admits.

“Oh!” Sherlock looks delightfully flustered, a little bit pleased and a little bit unnerved.

John sits up from his cocoon, ignoring the unpleasant touch of the cold air outside his nest of blankets. And groans.

“I’m too old for sleep-overs on the floor!” he sighs and uses his armchair to help him to his feet. He walks stiffly over to where his friend has turned back to the view outside. The snow is still falling, but fitfully now, and while there are people about, there are few cars or buses, making for a very quiet London this morning. It’s as if the world is holding its breath, John thinks, knowing how fanciful that sounds, but it suits his own mood exactly. They are on the edge of something new and untested, and it could all be too complicated or unwanted or unanticipated, but it will not be for want of words this time. If John is the plain speaking man he prides himself on being, and if Sherlock has already observed how he affects him, then anything he now admits will surely come as no shock to the consulting detective.

“What I said last night,” John begins, itching to place a finger against the bend in Sherlock’s elbow or the nape of his neck or the back of his hand, just to connect, to assure, to prove himself.  “I meant it. All of it. We can go wherever you like from here. That’s what ‘I love you’ means, to me at least. I have no expectations, but I think I’ve hidden behind my fear of losing you again for too long. It’s stopped me from being honest with you.”

“So let’s be honest now, “ Sherlock says, his voice miles away from his usual smooth baritone. He doesn’t make full eye contact, just quick glances. He turns from the window, faces John and seems to come to some conclusion with a short nod and renewed focus.

‘All right,” John says, trying not to feel trepidation at the opportunity he has handed his friend. It might just as well be his heart, beating defenceless in his palms.

“If I were to say that I didn’t want a physical relationship, only your companionship and your assistance on cases, you would be content with that?”

“Yes,” John says unhesitatingly.

Sherlock doesn’t react to that, only asks his next question in the same, level tone, establishing facts and testing theories.

“And if I were to ask for your hand in marriage and for wild and wonderful sexual relations between us?”

“Yes,” John says, his voice admirably firm, he feels, considering the visual.

“Explain,” Sherlock challenges.

And telling the truth is easy, John realises. “My place is with you for as long as you will have me. This is the best **me** I have ever been and the most… real. I won’t lie; I like sex, but never at the cost of my place in your life because I like you more. I would be content with my own hand forevermore if that’s what it takes.”

Sherlock looks on in stunned silence. Pain blooms in the frown on his face and the haunted look in his eyes. He appears to struggle for a few moments.

“And if I were to disappear again, leave you behind without a word? You would still love me?”

John swallows and lifts his chin. “Yes,” he manages around the sudden ache in his throat.

“Yes?” Sherlock asks, incredulous disbelief making his voice sharp.

“You would have your reasons. I might not agree with them, but whatever you did would be in my best interests as you saw them. That’s what I was trying to tell you last night. You are my best friend before anything else, before whatever else we might become, and I trust you.”

Sherlock sighs and his face smoothes into a tiny, lopsided smile. “John Watson, what can I possibly have done to have so steadfast and constant a friend as you?”

“You gave me back me,” John answers simply.

“You were there all along,” Sherlock says and reaches out a hand to John’s face, hesitating momentarily before he brushes a thumb across his bottom lip, sending lightning tendrils of want snaking between John’s legs. He tries to calm himself – this is Sherlock he’s dealing with – he cannot keep up with him intellectually at the best of times – so how can he possibly know what his intentions are in this action?

“I have been marvelling at myself since the moment we met – your presence has changed so many of my perceptions about things. I’ve never really cared what people think of me beyond my intellectual achievements, and yet I found myself wanting to impress you, to make you laugh. It was… unnerving. For the first time in my adult life I wanted another person to like me for no other reason than that I liked them. I don’t normally succumb to such sentiment, but over and over again you were the exception. Of course by the time I had recognised the pattern and realised the implications of that you had become indispensible to me. So when Moriarty, who had picked up on it quicker than I had myself, damn him, used you as leverage, he knew he had a winning hand. And even then I didn’t keep you safe. I couldn’t stop those snipers, I couldn’t watch you die, so I chose the only way I could to keep you safe. As it turns out, I was in error. Even from beyond the grave, Moriarty managed to get access to you.”

 _Through Mary_ remains unsaid but is understood by both of them.

But this is no place for talk of Moriarty or Mary or the time they were alone. This is their happily ever after with the dragons and the witches vanquished, this is the end to the dark days and the beginning of what they have earned for themselves. Each other. Understanding. Honesty.

“They’re gone,” John murmurs. “We are still here.”

“So we are, “ Sherlock agrees. He glances at John’s mouth. “I want… I find myself wanting to try things that I have little first hand experience of. With you.” He rolls his eyes at himself and seems frustrated by his lack of eloquence. “You may need to be patient with me in this but I want… what we talked about…. I want that. I want it all. With you.”

John finds a long-fingered hand cupping his jaw and lifting his face so a determined looking Sherlock can take a kiss from his lips. Sherlock kisses with intent, focussed and grave. And if this is his choice, then John needs to show him at once what this can be – what they already are and more.

John smiles against his lips and snakes an arm around his waist pulling him closer when he hesitates, forcing him to take a step nearer. John persists, butting his lips against Sherlock’s in repeated, tiny pecks until with a huff of amusement, he is chuckling into John’s mouth.

Hands follow the lines of shoulders giving up their warmth to the cool air in the room but neither of them stops to notice and their shivers are of discovery and anticipation when their explorations take them beyond faces and shoulders. John takes it slow, waiting for Sherlock to ease into each new touch, his skin still thrumming with tension with each new sensation. John marvels at his self-control, Sherlock waiting to be shown what is allowed and what is not. It’s so unlike him, John is intrigued and not a little concerned by Sherlock’s reticence.

“Just relax.”

“Not a simple ask when the price of my inexperienced mistake could be so high.”

John pulls back to check he’s heard that correctly.

“What do you mean?” He keeps his hands on Sherlock’s waist, stroking circles through his t-shirt with his thumbs.

“While not entirely accurate, Mycroft’s premise about my lack of awareness in regard to social cues is largely correct. I am a difficult man to be friends with, John and your tenacity in that capacity has put you in a unique position. Imagine how much harder it must be to endure my inadequacies as… more than a friend. So I find myself in the unenviable position of gambling everything on this. On you. On your ability to forgive, ignore and suffer when I make my next mistake, whatever or whenever it might be.”

“Sherlock… no. I’m… First of all, I’m hardly a paragon of virtue myself. Any allowances I might make for you will be equalled by the ones you make for me, I’m sure. And secondly, I’m hardly going into this blind. I know you. In fact I’m prepared to say that no one knows you better. This isn’t a golden goal situation.”

Sherlock looks pained for a moment. “Football?” he guesses and looks a tiny bit pleased when John nods.

“The game isn’t over when one of us falls down. Relationships don’t come with guarantees but I will promise you this; it will take more than one insult or one strop or one argument to make me rethink throwing in my lot with you. It’s been widely discussed that I am an idiot, and there might be some truth in that, but I’m here now… still, ready to make this commitment. Things will go wrong – it’s not supposed to be easy but I won’t make you guess. I will do whatever I can to make this work, and I will tell you if it isn’t so we can fix it. No mind games. No guessing. No lies.”

“And what do I give in return?”

“The same, Sherlock. The same.”

Nodding, Sherlock bites his lower lip. He sucks in a sharp breath to speak, but seems to change his mind.

Clearly plainer words are needed.

Lifting a blanket from the pile on the floor, John leads the way to Sherlock’s bedroom. His thin curtains are open and the clean light of the reflected snow has fallen into the folds and heaps of his unmade bed.

John encourages Sherlock to sit on the side of his messy bed, then steps back. It’s not so cold in here and the question in Sherlock’s gaze makes John warmer still.

“Wait here,” he tells Sherlock and walks to the bathroom. He pees, washes his hands and face, brushes his teeth and faces himself in the mirror. Tired. Pale. In need of a shave and a hot shower but those things can wait. However far this goes, John has a reasonable certainty that they don’t have to have it all today. He’s all but asked the man to stay with him forever.

Sherlock has taken him at his word and barely seems to have blinked since John left him on the side of the bed. He’s watching him with such openness, and John realises with a flood of warmth that Sherlock, although the smartest man he know and a genius, he has no idea what to do next.

He’d be lying if he claimed to have a lot of experience in relationships with men himself – he’s had one night stands with men, but none of them he knew well or loved like he loves this wide-eyed, docile-looking creature sitting waiting for him and deceiving no one with his meekness. John feels certain that Sherlock will learn fast and quickly become the bossy, mercurial man he is in other areas of their lives – a thought that fills him with anticipation and happiness.

“Oh, should I…?” Sherlock gestures toward the bathroom.

“Not unless you need to,” John replies, at which Sherlock shakes his head slightly, watching for a cue as to what he should do now.

 _Slowly_ , John thinks. There are layers and layers of restraint that Sherlock has learned and maintained over years of relegating his body to being ‘transport’.

He sits beside Sherlock on the bed, picks up his hand and plays idly with his fingers, learning the texture of his string calluses and the shape of his knuckles. Sherlock watches and follows John when he shifts across the mattress to lie down on his side, facing him.

Pressing a kiss to each knuckle, John lifts his attention to Sherlock’s face, pressing tiny kisses against his chin, cheeks and jaw, closed mouth and soft. He nudges Sherlock’s chin up with his nose and presses deeper, wetter kisses to Sherlock neck, relishing the tiny shudder that runs through his frame.

He’s so quiet, maintaining his breathing rate and still with his eyes open, straining to keep his gaze on John’s every move. With an admonition to adhere to his slow and steady plan, John sucks a little harder on the next inch of Sherlock’s throat and just grazes his teeth over Sherlock’s stubbled skin. He can feel the buzz of beard burn on his chin and lips already, but Sherlock’s sharp breath is the sweetest prize and John can’t bring himself to stop anyway.

“You’re mollycoddling me,” Sherlock rumbles quietly, but John can hear the note of apprehension that no amount of bravado can cover. “I won’t break, John. I said I was inexperienced not fragile.”

“Shhh,” John replies. “I’m learning you.” He sweeps a hand over Sherlock’s shoulder and down the warmth of his back, feeling bone and muscle and more of that thrumming tension that John aims to eradicate.

“Learn quicker,” Sherlock whispers as John closes his mouth over the juncture of his neck and shoulder, sucking a deep wet kiss into the smooth skin there.

Sherlock carefully moves closer, placing his hand on John’s hip. John mirrors him and moves closer too. He’s hardening inside his pyjama trousers and feels that it’s a good bet that Sherlock is in the same state, shifting restlessly as he is on the mattress.

He curls his arm around Sherlock’s waist and drags him in close, raising an eyebrow when the move pulls their clothed groins into contact. Sherlock freezes and seems as if he’s about to snap from the tension in his spine, his mouth forming words that don’t find voice. Like him, Sherlock is naked beneath his pyjama trousers and through the two layers of thin cotton, there’s very little left to the imagination.

The heat of Sherlock’s erection is like a brand against his own, and John’s soft groan is matched by Sherlock’s shuddering exhale.

John’s next choice isn’t so easy. There is so much he wants and so much of Sherlock to touch and taste and try. He can’t resist squeezing a hand between them and cupping the shape of him, letting his fingers trace the girth of him, thumbing the flare at the crown of his cock and taking the heaviness of his balls into his palm.

“Oh! Oh god…” Sherlock breathes.

The way he twitches against his hand, has John taking pity on Sherlock. He pushes him further over onto his back and carefully positions himself between Sherlock’s legs, easing his cock back into the perfect spot next to his. He thinks about pulling down their pyjamas, but one look at Sherlock’s flushed cheeks and the teeth leaving indents in his bottom lip, he decides against it. He craves pressure himself and when he begins to drag his clothed cock against Sherlock’s it is dangerously good. He rolls his hips, feeling the drag and glide of their hot skin through thin cotton – the silk throb of their lengths and the velvet heat as their balls move together. _Slowly_ , John reminds himself, fighting the urge to pin Sherlock down and take what he needs. He’s getting close already; dizzy with how fast this is happening.

Sherlock shudders and shakes beneath him, his hands descend tentatively on John’s lower back, fingers spread wide and greedy against his overheated skin, sliding lower so slowly. Even now, head thrown back, every tendon in his torso flexing, he’s holding back, uncertain.

“Let go, Sherlock. I want to see you come,” John murmurs against his collarbone, smearing kisses there.

“John! I… please…” His voice is wrecked, gravelly and breathless.

“What do you need? Tell me!”

Instead of speaking, Sherlock scrabbles for John’s hand and pulls it down to where their pyjamas are damp with their combined excitement.

John eases back, his own cock twitching and desperate, but Sherlock needs this, he seems utterly lost, broken open. Feeling the prickle of sweat break out across his shoulders, John holds back a moan to match the one rolling from Sherlock’s lips, at the sight before him. Settling onto his knees between his thighs, John slips his hand beneath the waistband of Sherlock’s pyjamas. At the touch of his hand on oversensitive skin, Sherlock’s voice is lost to heaving breaths and silently mouthed curses. John doesn’t want to tear his eyes away from the stain on Sherlock’s cheeks and the sheen of perspiration on his throat, but he has Sherlock Holmes naked and begging beneath him. He has to look.

His slender frame is muscled, hidden strength. His skin is smooth and starkly pale in contrast to the line of dark, neatly trimmed hair that extends from his navel down to his groin, His cock is tight against his belly, long rather than thick and circumcised. Next time, John thinks, next time he will pull that perfect, delicious skin into his mouth and learn the shape of it with his tongue, but for now, Sherlock needs to come.

Leaning over him, braced on one hand, John encircles Sherlock’s cock and works him with long, fast strokes, knowing that it won’t take much in the way that Sherlock arches his spine, and pumps his hips into John’s fist. His hands smack down on the bed and grip hard when John’s thumb rubs rough circles just beneath the slit, spreading the moisture that leaks copiously from him now.

Sherlock stiffens, holds his breath and his cock jerks in John’s grasp as he begins to come. He spends onto his chest and belly, and his jaw - thick drops that glisten in the morning light, pulse after pulse, each wrung from Sherlock’s body, his eyes screwed tightly shut.

Eventually his aftershocks subside to the point where he melts into the mattress, sucking in breath after laboured breath. His eyes open, sleepy and dazed, but quickly find John.

He carefully lets go of Sherlock’s cock, sits back on his heels and dips a slow, soft finger into one of the cooling drops that pattern Sherlock’s skin. Sherlock’s eyes watch, in rapture as John brings the finger to his lips to taste. Sherlock looks fascinated, so John swipes a forefinger through a tiny pool that has slid into Sherlock’s navel and lifts it to Sherlock offering it against his lips.

Sherlock only hesitates for a second before his tongue slips out and touches to the pad of John’s finger. He can’t help it, John groans a little and his cock throbs at the sight as with a quirked lip, Sherlock open up and sucks John’s whole finger into his mouth, circling it with his tongue more thoroughly than the tiny amount of fluid should warrant.

“Now you,” Sherlock murmurs releasing John’s finger to the cool air. He settles back and drops his eyes expectantly to John’s cotton covered groin where an obscenely large and dark patch rests over the head of his cock. “Show me,” Sherlock insists.

John has never been the subject of such scrutiny before, and he’s hardly shy about his body or nudity per se, but already Sherlock has derailed John’s plans for slow and steady. Even here, in bed, Sherlock’s precocious intellect is pushing boundaries and chasing answers.

In the end it is the insistent and uncomfortable pulse of his dick that makes up his mind. He pushes his pyjamas off his hips, down to his knees and shuffles forward, forcing them further down his shins where he can reach back and pull them off altogether.

Sherlock’s eyes are hooded with bliss still from his recent orgasm, but they glitter with curiosity as John takes a handful of himself and works his foreskin to cover and reveal the shining head of his cock a few times before he sets himself a bruising pace, sinking into his heels and pushing his thighs apart, tucking them beneath Sherlock’s.

He knows that he too doesn’t need much - it’s been building since the second he saw Sherlock haloed in the window by the light from Baker Street.

Sherlock’s eyes follow John’s hand as it moves over him, and then flickers to his face, making links between John’s actions and expressions. Almost thoughtlessly he reaches down and takes his own cock in his hand and mimics John’s touches. He hasn’t softened completely and under his hand he begins to plump up again nicely.

John is assailed on too many fronts, the smell of Sherlock, the sight of his spend, still all over his skin, and the sharp awareness behind the eyes that are watching him so intently. His own fist has never, ever felt so good. Under Sherlock’s rapt gaze, John wants to show off, show this mad, infuriating bastard just how crazy he makes him, how he has longed for him, how desired he is.

He reaches his peak with a hoarse shout, the muscles in his back and thighs protesting as they tighten further. The first pulse spatters across Sherlock’s stomach and pyjamas, but he catches the rest in his fist, working himself through the high until it becomes too much. He slumps back, one hand behind him to brace him and gasps for breath, his heart hammering against his ribs. He feels a touch to his cock and shivers at the overstimulation, but opening his eyes he finds Sherlock, carefully, reverently touching two fingers to his slit before looking closely at the glistening fluid and licking it from his fingers with the curiosity of a connoisseur.

John’s cock gives a feeble pulse as Sherlock’s eyes meet his. They are wide, his irises are a thin corona of grey around blown pupils and John can see a million questions and theories and ideas there along with excitement and tenderness.

“John?” he asks quietly, his eyebrows drawing down in puzzlement.  “I find myself… Is it acceptable to want to do this again immediately?”

John shifts his knees and flops back onto the bed, wiping the incriminating evidence off on Sherlock’s posh bedding. Covering his eyes with his clean(er) hand, he laughs between gasps for air. His heart hasn’t even stopped trying to beat its way out of his ribcage yet.

John feels a glow of satisfaction and the sweet sensation of having had his prediction proved right. Already Sherlock is finding his feet and making demands. Who knows how far his innate curiosity and his natural bossiness will take him, but John knows that he is a match for anything that Sherlock can bring.

“Yes, love, it is, but we might need to wait for a while. I don’t bounce back like I used to!”

“A while? What is that? Can you be more precise?”

He reaches up while Sherlock frowns at him and pulls him down into a bristly kiss that quickly deepens into soft, slow, lingering kisses that seem to soothe some of his impatience.

John smiles against his mouth when Sherlock pulls back a little to hum against his lips.

“You know we owe your brother for this kick up the arse, don’t you? If he hadn’t visited, if he hadn’t texted…”

“Eugh!” Sherlock sighs. “If I agree, can we never mention him in our bed again?”

John notices the possessive clause, but covers his delight with burying his nose in Sherlock’s mad hair as he settles himself closer to John’s body. He rests a hand on John’s belly and they both seem to notice the chill at the same time, so they thrash and wriggle the quilt out from beneath them and cover themselves.

“Afterwards, shall we go for a walk in the snow?”

“You’ve not had enough of it already?” Sherlock asks.

“Nah, got some ideas how you can warm me up afterwards if you’re interested.”

“Ohhhh. In which case then the answer is a resounding yes, I do want to go for a walk in the snow with you. But first I’m honour bound to take grapes and dreadful paperback novels for my father.’”

“Of course. Okay, so, nap, more orgasms, shower, late breakfast, check on Mrs H, hospital visiting, walk and then inventive ways to warm up afterwards.”

“Sounds like a perfect day,” Sherlock yawns.

“I love you,” John says, unable to keep the words behind clenched teeth any longer. He’s going to let them out – all of those that he has been forced to hide all this time. Every _I love you_  will find its voice now, if he has anything to do with it.

Sherlock stills for a moment, then sits bolt upright. He jumps out of bed before John can protest and disappears out of the door.

Confusion is swiftly spreading into concern and John sits up wondering that his words have met with such an odd response this morning. 

His hair in disarray, Sherlock pokes his head back around the door and grabs his dressing gown off the peg. “Likewise,” he declares and narrows his eyes at John. “Don’t go anywhere,” he warns and disappears in a swirl of midnight silk.

John doesn’t want to let nerves or worries intrude here. The hardest part is done and the best is yet to come, he hopes, but it isn’t until he hears a quick run of plucked, then bowed notes that he releases the rock of tension in his neck and shoulders.

A dramatic opening, low and urgent that slides away into a minor key, bittersweet and beautiful in a way that makes John hold his breath to catch every melancholy note. But then there’s hope, a lift into a major key, tentative, but there and growing surer and sweeter with each variation of the main melody that begins to twine its way through the piece, a familiar melody that John has been hearing snatches of for months now.

Sherlock’s love letter.

A piece of composition that he picked up from the floor yesterday, hidden between other sheets and only taken out when Sherlock thought he had no audience.

Hearing it all the way through for the first time, John wonders at how long he has been working on it, wonders if it kept Sherlock company in the years they were apart, before he had his violin to even hear it out loud.

John realises he is going to need every single one of those ‘I love you’s that he’s been hoarding. Sherlock is pouring out a dozen or more in each pass of his bow.

Naps can wait.

John has something he has to go and say.

 

Fin


End file.
